A Conversation About New Urbanism - Tonight!

There is an opportunity this evening to join together for a conversation about New Urbanism in Tacoma. Specifically, the focus is on the Theater District, but the people involved will share insights that can be applied throughout the city. Do you have opinion? Join the conversation! Here’s the press release:

“Talking Truth / Engaging New Urbanism in the Theater District.”

Tad Monroe, pastor at Urban Grace Church, will serve as host and moderator. Eric Jacobson, pastor at First Presbyterian Church, will provide a presentation, described below. Following his program we will convene a panel discussion, with Mayor Marilyn Strickland, Eric, Benjii Bittle from the Broadway Center, Michael Mirra from the Tacoma Housing Authority, and Blaine Johnson, Theater District Association, on the panel. This will provide an important opportunity to have a candid conversation about our neighborhood and how we can collectively address all the drama and challenges of urban transformation.

Building on Our Strengths

We are all invested in the Theater District Neighborhood in one way or another. By choosing to live, manage a business, or practice a craft in this neighborhood, we are investing our resources, our talents, and our very lives in this place. We have done so because we see this as a good place and we want to make it even better.

We are not alone in making these kinds of personal and professional decisions. All around the country people are rediscovering the unique potential of older urban neighborhoods and are finding creative ways to breath new life into them without destroying those very things that make them good.

Eric O. Jacobsen, who is a local pastor and urbanist, has identified six markers that account for some of the good things that we see in these kinds of neighborhoods. These six markers can provide a framework for us to discuss how we as local business owners, residents, and artists can make our neighborhood better by playing into our strengths. These markers can be described as follows:

1) Public Space: In traditional cities, there is a kind of coherence as well as significant investment (financial, geographical, and aesthetic effort) in public spaces that is not present in the suburbs.

2) Mixed use: In traditional cities it is possible for one to live, work, play, and even worship without getting into a car.

3) Beauty: In cities, we often find a high concentration of buildings of exceptional beauty/quality that ‘we can’t afford to build’ anymore.

4) Local Economy: Good cities maintain an economy that is diverse and robust enough for our children to find decent jobs if they want to stay when they grow up.

5) Critical Mass: Cities have sufficient density to support a lively nightlife, decent public transit system, and lots of serendipitious encounters.

6) Strangers: The city is one of the last places where a stranger can be a stranger without feeling like a pariah.

But this conversation won’t achieve much without your participation. We want to hear your ideas and get your feedback on what makes this neighborhood special. Please join us on Thursday, Feb. 25th as we work together to make the Theater District the most dynamic neighborhood in Tacoma.

Details
Thursday, February 25th at 7:00 pm
Urban Grace Church – 9th and Market Streets